“SO, WHERE DOyou want to go?” Lee asked.
Wren scanned the horizon. The kayak seemed ridiculously small against the expanse of the lake. Even though she could clearly see the opposite shore, she felt like a ladybug traversing the ocean on a leaf.
Still, the sight that stretched out before her was breathtaking. Cypress trees draped in Spanish moss gave the lake a haunting allure. Reflections of fluffy clouds rippled on the water’s surface.
And the birds…
Everywhere she looked, there were birds. Even as they paddled away from the bass boats queuing up at the launch, she spotted a blue heron stepping through the shallows near the bank. Wren reached for her phone to snap a picture, but it startled and took flight. She wondered how close they’d really be able to get to the egrets perched in the trees.
“Can we go over there?" She pointed to their left toward the trees where hundreds of the white birds nested.
“Sure. Anything you want." She could feel the force of Lee’s strokes as he pushed them across the water. Wren did her best to help out, but his efforts were more sure and true. He eased back as they approached the first curtain of cypresses.
In front of her, Victor tipped up his nose and sniffed as the low-hanging moss passed overhead. Wren rested her paddle across her lap as Lee slowed even more, the sound of his paddling now just a tiny trickle.
They drifted beneath a great egret with feathers fanned out like a dandelion. Wren pointed at it.
“You see that? The way his feathers look all wispy?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah?” Lee whispered back.
“That’s his breeding plumage. He’s trying to attract a mate.”
Lee chuckled behind her.
She wished then that she could see him without turning around.
“What’s the human equivalent of breeding plumage?” he asked.
Wren stifled a laugh at his question. “A tattoo, of course,” she whispered back.
“Well, then I’m in luck." He was speaking so softly, Wren wasn’t sure she’d heard him clearly.
She took out her phone so she didn’t have to respond to him, and she snapped a few shots of the egret.
“So, is that bird going to become a tattoo?” Lee asked, his voice going gentle. By the sound, Wren could tell he was smiling.
She shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. If not one of mine, then someone else’s." It was an honest answer. She’d take the pictures home and draw some sketches. The sketches she liked best would become templates in her book at the studio, and, more than likely, someone would buy them.
“I have to draw them first and see if they’re any good,” she explained.
Lee went silent for a minute.
“So… why tattoos?” he asked. “I mean, why ink over other art forms?”
She wasn’t ready for his question, so she deflected. “Why gynecology? Over other kinds of medicines?”
Wren heard him chuckle. “I asked you first.”
“So?” she defended. “What are you? Twelve?”
Another silence.
“In some ways.” His chuckle dried up. “Marcelle certainly thought so.”
Wren’s ears perked. She wanted to see the look on his face, but, in the kayak, she’d have to glance back over her shoulder without stealth. Instead, she put away her phone and picked up the paddle again.
“Why did she think that?” she asked finally, her own voice cautious around the question.
